_Webster, David Lumsden, B.A.--General Administrator Royal Opera House 1946--Born 3rd July, 1903--Educated Holt School, Liverpool University, Oxford University--President Liverpool Guild of Undergraduates, 1924-25--General Manager Bon Marché, Liverpool, Ltd., 1932-40--General Manager Lewis’s Ltd., Liverpool, 1940-41--Ministry of Supply Ordnance Factories, engaged on special methods of developing production, 1942-44--Chairman Liverpool Philharmonic Society, June 1940-October 1945._ To be sure, the facts are there. Not only is it possible to elaborate on these facts, but to add some which may be implicit in the above summary, but not apparent. For example, I can add that David Webster is a cultured gentleman of taste, courage, and splendid business perspicacity. His early background of business administration, as may be gathered, was acquired in the fields of textiles and wearing apparel, and was continued, during the war, in the highly important field of expediting ordnance production. Things that are not implicit or even suggested in _Who’s Who_ are the depth and breadth of his culture, his knowledge of literature and drama and poetry and music--his love for the last making him a genuine musical amateur in the best sense of the term. It was the last that was of immense value to him as Chairman of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in building it into one of Britain’s outstanding symphonic bodies. It is understandable that there was a certain amount of pardonable pride in the accomplishment, since Webster is himself a Liverpudlian. At the end of the war, in a shell-shocked, bomb-blasted London, Webster was invited to take over the post of General Administrator at Covent Garden when the Covent Garden Opera Trust was formed at the time of the Boosey and Hawkes leasehold. Since 1946, David Webster has been responsible for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: for the Opera entirely, and for the Ballet, in conjunction with Ninette de Valois. During this time, he has restored the historic house to its rightful place among the leading lyric theatres of the world; where private enterprise and the private Maecenas failed, Webster has succeeded. By his policies, the famous house has been saved from the ignominy of a public dance-hall in off-seasons, for now there are no longer any “off-seasons.”